


Samson and Delilah

by BoxWineConfessions



Series: Otabek Altin Week 2017 [4]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Rapunzel hair Yuri, barber Otabek, barber shop au, hair cut get together fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 03:01:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12547356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoxWineConfessions/pseuds/BoxWineConfessions
Summary: Otabek's days are filled with the sound of the dustpan hitting the floor as he sweeps up hair, the snip snap of scissors and the buzz of clippers against skin. The the acrid scent of sterilizing solution burns itself into his consciousness, and mutes the taste of food. It takes time for him to stop thinking about Yuri’s legs spread wide in the middle of the day. It takes a few days for him to look out the window and double take every time he sees someone with long blonde hair. He really hopes that Yuri decides to come back for a haircut.





	Samson and Delilah

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dovesnroses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dovesnroses/gifts), [thoughtsappear](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thoughtsappear/gifts).



Leopard print tank, high waisted black shorts, long blond hair down past her ass: Otabek’s first inclination is to tell her that Mila’s beauty shop is down the street. Then, he watchers her kick the door back shut, stomp across the black and white checkered floor, and flop down into the barber chair with her legs spread wide. It becomes abundantly clear when he looks in the long salon mirror up the leg of the high waisted shorts, a distinct bulge trapped in white underwear. She is actually a he.

“Hey, I need a fucking haircut.” The boy rests his floral print doc martens on the counter, and props himself back into the chair. “I’m assuming I don’t need an appointment. There’s no one fucking in here.” 

Otabek’s breath hitches at the entire display from the boots, to the hair, to the fringe that tickles against his milky white thighs. It’s only been a few months since he dropped out of highschool and started taking GED classes. It’s only been a few months since he started at his Dad’s barber shop full time, but in that time he knows what to expect. Grizzled old men who want buzzcuts, and younger hipsters that want an “authentic” hot shave. There’s little in between, and there’s never been anyone quite…like this. 

“Normally, I’d dump your ass out of the chair for talking to me like that,” Otabek grabs the smock from off the wall, walks over to where the boy sits, and drapes it across his front. “But even long haired reprobates need haircuts I suppose.” He flashes the boy the smile that he keeps in a cigar box on the top of his dresser, and only takes out when him and JJ go down to the dance hall in Springfield. 

“What’s with you asshole?” 

Otabek places his hand underneath the boy’s hair, and pulls foot after foot of long blonde hair over the smock. Otabek’s stomach twists into knots, as he is of two minds. It seems criminal to cut all this beautiful hair. On the other hand, it’s going to give him a reason to touch it, thread his fingers through it, and brush it back, if not but for a moment. 

“Small talk I guess,” Otabek shrugs. “That thing where I try to build rapport and get you as a repeat customer, and you just hope that I shut up.” 

“It’s working,” Otabek watches him twist uncomfortably in the chair in the reflection of the styling mirror. “The part about me wanting you to shut up. If you want me to come back you’ll be waiting another sixteen years.”

Otabek reaches for his comb and his spray bottle, but it seems moot. With a mop like this, he doesn’t even know where to begin. The bitter and medicinal smell of the sterilizing solution fills the salon when he  pulls the chrome lid open and fishes for a black plastic comb. “First time?” 

“Yeah,” Yuri responds with a gasp, as if the simple monosyllabic response is painful. 

“What’s your name?” 

“Yuri,” he breathes. “Just get on with it,” but his face grows redder and redder by the second. “I’m not here to fucking make friends.” 

“What do you want?” Otabek asks running his fingers as far down Yuri’s long blonde hair as far down as he can go without bending at his knees. Otabek doesn’t want to cut it. He wants to braid it, and run his fingers through it, and dye it rainbow colored, but he doesn’t want to cut it. The ends are even, and touch down damn near to the floor when Yuri is seated. A head of hair doesn’t come along like this often. 

Yuri sucks in a labored breath, and averts his gaze away from the mirror. He looks washed out and constantly caught by surprise in the light of the vanity lights. “Just like, all of it. I have to.” 

“Yuri,” Otabek takes the hair in his hands and stretches an elastic band over top, pulling it into a loose ponytail at his shoulders. He’s dealt with people who were afraid before. Usually it's little kids, brought in by their fathers for their first bland and uninspired haircut. In those moments, Otabek gives the first haircut that would lead to a lifetime of many. “What if we started at just past the shoulders? Then you can see if you want more off from there?” It’s still too much, but it’s not  _ everything _ like Yuri said. 

“Yeah.” 

Otabek reaches for his scissors now. In the mirror he can see that Yuri’s knuckles are white, his Listerine green eyes are screwed shut. “This won’t hurt much, I promise.” 

“Fucking stop it with the goddamn small talk!” 

“Alright.” Otabek raises his scissors to just above where the elastic band bisects his hair. He’s so familiar with the slow acrid  _ snip _ of scissors making the first cut into thick hair. He’s so familiar with the sight of long locks falling to the floor and the smock being dusted with the finer hairs. 

None of it happens. Yuri stands up with a start, gets his boot caught in the foot rest of the barber’s chair. The smock gets tangled in the fury and it tears away, and with it so does Yuri out the door and back onto Main Street. The soles of his combat boots squeak against the pristine linoleum floor. 

* * *

 Life returns to normal after that, and his days are filled with the sound of the dustpan hitting the floor as he sweeps up hair, the  _ snip snap _ of scissors and the buzz of clippers against skin. The the acrid scent of sterilizing solution burns itself into his consciousness, and mutes the taste of food. He asks his clients about their grandkids. He tells his father to not work so hard, and asks to take on some of his clients so he can get more, “training.” Who needs more training when you cycle through the same three haircuts all day every single day? Life returns to normal after that, and single day at 9:05, when they’ve barely been open for an hour, Otabek will go  down to the coffee shop to get him and his father a cup and sneak a smoke. Over the sound of the afternoon news, he’ll eat a sandwich from the café nextdoor. Between haircuts, he tries to read. 

Life returns to normal after that, but it takes time for him to stop thinking about Yuri’s legs spread wide in the middle of the day. It takes a few days for him to look out the window and double take everytime he sees someone with long blonde hair. As soon as the intrusive thoughts cease, Yuri and his hair stomp back into his life. This time, he’s wearing canvas tennis shoes, and has his hair done up in buns. Otabek is unfortunately with a client, “can you wait for me to finish up?” 

Yuri shakes his head yes and sinks into the burgundy fake leather of the sofa they keep in the waiting area. Dad finishes his own client before Otabek, and offers him his own chair, “I can do it, if you want.” 

To which Yuri supplies, “No way. I want him to do it.” 

Otabek has to make sure to hold his hands steady, and pay extra attention to Mr. Omarov’s hairline instead of focusing on the feeling of his ego swell. Yuri  _ wants _ him to do it. 

Focusing on the task at hand is easier said than done. Yuri soon tires of playing games on his phone. He gets up from the sofa, walks past the counter, and starts watching intently as Otabek snips away at Mr. Omarov’s abundant whorls of brown gray hair. 

Although the situation makes Otabek’s chest tight with anxiety, Mr. Omarov is none the wiser. He chats happily with Yuri, and doesn’t seem to feel intruded upon. 

“Like,” up over the twin sounds of  _ snick-snack _  from his and his father’s twin scissors and the static filled noise coming from the AM radio they keep in the propped open window, the soles of Yuri’s sneakers squeak against the floor tiles.  “I know it isn’t gonna hurt. I’m not fucking stupid.” For whatever reason, in that moment, Otabek moves around the chair, and their eyes lock perfectly. Yuri’s eyes are fierce, and he wonders what it is that he’s seen in order to look so fierce when the stakes are so low.  “It’s just like, it’s a part of me. You know?” He seems to say this to Otabek and to Otabek alone. 

Otabek doesn’t know. He likes the way he looks right now, but he could change it in an instant and still feel in tact. 

Otabek shows Mr. Omarov the back of his hair with the hand mirror. Then, he sweeps  around Yuri, cleaning up the area. Then, he spins the chair round, offering it to Yuri. “Want to?” 

Otabek can see Yuri’s pupils narrow. He clenches and unclenches his fist, and Otabek silently hopes that he doesn’t just  _ bolt _ again. The sound of dad’s scissors sound deafening, rising up against every other cacophonous sound in the shop. 

Otabek gestures to the door, “let’s have a smoke first.” He doesn’t know for sure if Yuri does, but diffusing the thick tension that’s built from every snip of the scissors. He doesn’t want to cut his hair, but he doesn’t want Yuri to bolt either. 

The alley out back is by no means quiet. The cook from the café is taking out the trash. The shoe store next door is getting a shipment, and the owner Mr. Petrov is yelling about the increased shipping costs. Yuri fishes a cigarette out from his impossibly tight black jeans. Otabek lights his own cigarette, and offers the light to Yuri. Holding the lighter still lit in his hand, Yuri leans into Otabek’s space. He smells like mint gum, and the sickly sweet scent of cheap floral perfume. 

“You don’t have to cut it.” If it’s so important to him, why should he bend to someone else’s standards?

“Yeah I do,” Yuri admits. 

“Why?” 

“I’m a dancer, and it’s so long it gets in the way when I’m moving,” Yuri does a quick spin to show him. “So braid it right?” 

Otabek nods. 

“Well, when that happens, it slaps me in the face. Throws my moves off.” 

“I guess you really do have to then, huh?” 

“Yeah,” Yuri takes a long drag off of his cigarette. Otabek does the same. 

“Why do you smoke then?” 

Yuri’s laugh is slight and secretive, as if it holds many memories and unclaimed feelings. “Mom always said it helped keep her skinny, so... Hey, what’s your name?” Yuri flicks the filter of his cigarette too many times. He’s still keyed up. He’s so not getting a haircut today. 

“Otabek.” 

“Well Otabek,” Yuri snuffs out his cigarette on the brick wall. “I can’t fuckin do it, because I’m a pussy.”

Yuri turns on his heel to go, and Otabek acts on instinct. He’s seen those long dancer’s legs  in shorts. He’s seen the long blonde hair fanned out around his face in the chair. He’s stared at those lips for no longer than a few minutes as they’ve stood out in the alley to smoke, but Otabek wants more and he feels like he can get it.  

He grabs Yuri by the shoulder, and Yuri whips back around to look at him. 

“You should come by the shop on Sunday. We’re closed, but I’ll open it up for you. It’ll be nice and quiet. We can try then. 

Yuri’s scowl fades into something like a melancholy smile. “Sure.” 

* * *

Yuri knocks on the glass door at 10:09. Otabek drops the morning paper, and he can feel his whole face pull into a big stupid looking grin whenever he sees Yuri’s face pressed against the glass peering into the shop. Yuri always looks good, but today he’s wearing a mint colored shirt that brings out the darker colors of his eyes. his hair is pulled back into a simple braid.

“Let’s try something different today.” Otabek stands over Yuri as he leans his head back into the wash basin. Otabek undoes the elastic band at the end of Yuri’s braid, and undoes mile after mile of long blonde hair.  Otabek wets Yuri’s hair with the detachable shower head, and threads his fingers through his dense strands trying to get every bit of his hair wet. 

Yuri’s eyes flutter closed. His expression is relaxed. Otabek is close enough to smell the cheap floral perfume again. He’s close enough to feel the heat from Yuri’s body. “You just wanted to see me again.” Otabek teases. 

“Maybe.” Yuri’s mouth twists into a smile. “I really didn’t want to come this morning, but um…” He laughs, and it isn’t the acerbic sound that he made out in the alley way. It’s a genuine airy giggle that twists his mouth at each end. Even though his eyes are closed, Otabek sees happiness there too. “Yeah, maybe I did.” 

Otabek opens a bottle of the expensive peppermint scented shampoo that he’s supposed to upsell to customers. Then, he starts spreading generous amounts into Yuri’s hair. His thick hair absorbs all of it, and he has to re-apply multiple times. “Relax,” Otabek urges when he watches Yuri’s face tug into a grimace. “Let me do this for you.” 

“If you do this for me, a haircut comes next.” 

Otabek shushes him. He works the lather into Yuri’s hair until the washbasin is filled with suds and everything is white. His hands make squelching sounds when they touch together, and move large tufts of Yuri’s hair about. “Why is your hair so special Yuri?” 

“Oh,” Yuri’s eyes flutter open. While Yuri looks up at Otabek, Otabek looks down at Yuri and sees a faint peach colored blush rise to his cheeks. “My grandma used to fix it for me before performances and stuff. She worked at the makeup counter at the department store.” 

Otabek hums in response and agreement. 

“This is going to sound really lame, but it’s good to hide under. Like if you didn’t do the reading, and the teacher’s looking to see at faces to see who did it and who didn’t.”

“No face?” 

“Right,” Yuri agrees. No face.”   It goes quiet between them after that. Otabek rinses the shampoo out of Yuri’s hair, and moves onto conditioner.  Yuri sighs contentedly when his fingers scratch lightly against his scalp, and it makes Otabek’s heart beat faster each and every time. “This is really nice, you know?” 

“Ah,” Otabek begins dryly. “Not really?” 

“Oh, right.” Yuri’s eyes drift closed. “You probably don’t get you hair washed by other people.” 

“Right.” 

“None of this is necessary is it? If you’re just going to chop it all off,” Yuri notes. 

“I mean you haven’t bolted out the door yet.” Otabek rinses Yuri’s hair once more, and spends an agonizing amount of time squeezing the excess moisture from his hair. 

“are you going to make me sit underneath one of those bubble helmets?” Yuri asks. 

“We don’t even have those here,” Otabek responds. 

Next, he has Yuri stand on top of a shipping crate, and he gets a comb with the biggest teeth that he can find. He makes sure to rinse it under hot water, so that it doesn’t smell like the blue green sanitizer they use to clean the combs. 

It takes Otabek hours to comb through it all, but he feels compelled to do so. Yuri’s hair is a work of art, and so giving him a new style will also be just that. A process through which Yuri is changed, on the inside and on the outside. He begins each brush stroke at the root, and he works all the way down Yuri’s back until he’s bent at the knee desperately trying to work out the last of the knots without ripping the strand. 

As the hours slide past, Yuri becomes more and more responsive to his idle chatter, perhaps because unlike with his other clients, he is legitimately interested. “Which school do you go to? Central?” 

“No,” Yuri responds. “DeSale Center for the Arts. Do you go to Central?” 

“Not anymore,” Otabek confesses. “It wasn’t for me, and dad needed me here.” 

“What is your tattoo of?” Yuri gestures to the ink that pokes out of his white uniform shirt. 

“Almaty,” Otabek responds. “I was born there.” 

“No shit,” Yuri comments. “I was born in Moscow.” 

Otabek never feels embarrassed about speaking Russian to the old men who come into the store. He never feels embarrassed when he speaks it with father. It’s as simple as breathing. Something about switching over, from English to Russian with Yuri makes his heart skip a beat. “I haven’t been back since we left. I was really young then. Maybe it’s stupid to get a tattoo of a place you can’t even remember,” he tells Yuri in their native tongue. 

“I don’t think so,” Yuri responds in Russian. “Keeps you from completely forgetting, right?” 

“Right.” 

After ninety minutes, Otabek has Yuri’s hair half combed. They stop for a smoke break, and Yuri tells him about all the horrible things the ballet students do. Smoke and thrive off of diet coke and chocolate, date boys that go to the prep academy uptown in exchange for answers to their math homework... It makes him seem more human, and less like some strange ethereal thing that wandered in from the shop like a dream. 

They decide to smoke a second out in the alleyway, one right after the first. Otabek tells him how he’s studying for his GED. How he wants to go to do anything than this. He tells him about dad’s heart attack, and his out and out refusal to slow down. He hasn’t talked to anyone about that. Not even dad’s regulars who ask after him in hushed tones when his back is turned. 

Then Yuri tells him about his grandfather when they head back inside.

Otabek finishes combing his hair, and asks Yuri “Are we doing this or not?” 

“Now or never,” Yuri says through gritted teeth. 

Otabek asks him for the third separate time, “how do you want it?” 

“Really fucking short.” 

“Are you sure? We could cut it to just below your shoulders, and see if you wanted to go shorter?” Yuri sits in the chair with the smock draped across him. Otabek’s hand rests on his shoulder. 

“I trust you,” Yuri simply responds. “Would it be lame if I asked you to cut it like yours? It would wouldn’t it?” 

“I don’t think so,” Otabek responds, already imagining running his short clipped nails over Yuri’s shorn scalp to check and make sure that everything is even. “I have an idea.” Otabek pins up Yuri’s top layer of hair with several large green clips. Then, he grabs his scissors, and this time, Yuri stays perfectly still as he begins to snip away at the long blonde locks. 

They fall away from Yuri in fast forward slow motion. The hair falls away slowly at first, as he cuts into a strand, and then all at once to the floor.  

_ Snip _

“Hey,” 

_ Snap _

“Yeah?”

_ Snip _

“Nah, it’s dumb.” 

_ Snap _

“Go on,” Otabek insists. “Say it.” He and Yuri have been stealing furtive glances at each other in the styling mirror for hours now as the hours slide by. It’s clear, what’s going on. The timid, but intrepid back and forth between them that steadily moves forward with each disclosure is difficult to deny. 

_ Snip _

“I don’t know, I didn’t eat breakfast before I came. There’s a really good Mediterranean place nearby. I’m probably gonna stuff my face with like four gyros after this. If you wanted to come, but it’s like your day off and-“ 

_ Snip Snip _

Otabek doesn’t respond right away. He takes the second clip out, and begins to snip off the rest of Yuri’s hair. On the floor beneath the chair, the black and white checkered flooring is covered by a mountain of hair. “Apollo’s?” 

“Uh-yeah,” Yuri’s face is as red as the cherry stripe red on the barber poll. 

“I don’t know,” Otabek pauses for a moment, just to see Yuri’s eyes grow wide in near panic. “The owner knows my dad really well. I don’t want to get teased for going there on a date.” 

_ Snap Snip _

“We could go to the taco truck instead?” Otabek supplies. “My treat.” 

‘Yeah,” Yuri stammers. “Sounds good.” 

When Yuri’s hair is cut into a neat bob that frames his face beautifully. It’s long enough he can still pin it back or put it into those cute little buns he came in with last time. In a few months, it will grow out again, and then he can braid it. Otabek runs a comb down the center of his scalp, fixing it into a neat side part and pins up the hair on the crown of his hair once again. Then, he gets his clippers out. 

“You look so serious when you work. Like you’re doing brain surgery,” Yuri comments. 

“This is serious Yuri,” Otabek says as he switches the clippers on. The constant buzz of the clippers is much more even, and much more soothing than the disjointed  _ snip snap _ of the scissors. The vibration in his palm is simple, and he understands it well. Slowly, carefully, he shears off the rest of the hair at the back of Yuri’s head, and leaving only short fine hairs in his wake. 

“This is better,” Yuri comments as Otabek runs the clippers across the back of his head. “It feels kind of good.” 

“I think this part tickles,” Otabek says as he presses the blade closer to Yuri’s ear. 

“Ah, fuckin stop,” Yuri squirms in the chair. 

“I have to,” Otabek responds, his mouth curling into a smile. “It needs to be even.” 

“You’re a dick.” 

When the last bit of hair falls away, and everything looks perfect, Otabek pulls the smock back from Yuri’s body. He brushes the tiny fine hairs away. He turns Yuri around, and hands him the black lacquer hand mirror that’s been passed around the shop for years now. “How does it look?” 

But Yuri doesn’t look in the hand mirror, at least not right away. He looks to Otabek, their eyes locking together without the mirror as surrogate for the first time in hours. Then, he forces himself to look in the mirror. He pulls his bobbed hair back to reveal the undercut. He runs his fingernails across the freshly shorn hair. “Good,” he says. The chair squeaks when he rises, and the mirror gets thrust back into his hands. “Really good.” 

Otabek feels warm soft lips graze his cheek. It’s the kind of thing that barely registers in the moment, and burns his skin in aftermath. 

“Thanks.” 

“No problem.” Otabek presses his lips to Yuri’s. He tastes like cherry chapstick. Yuri returns his kiss with firm parted lips. It’s still soft, and it’s still restrained, but it offers a hint of the fierceness with which Yuri looks at him. Otabek traces the line of Yuri’s lips with his tongue, and Yuri nips his lower lip in response. 

They part with a soft  _ smack _ of the lips. Yuri tugs at the white collar of his smock. “Let’s go eat. I’m fucking starving.” 


End file.
